As stated by Josep Corcó, lecturer at the Faculty of Humanities and one of the speakers for the Cross-Disciplinary Workshop, this commemoration “has generated a large number of activities all over the world on an author as universal as Dante”. “In fact,” said Corcó, “The Divine Comedy is possibly the second most widely read book in history”.

This year’s Cross-Disciplinary Workshop was keen to study Dante's masterpiece from different perspectives because, as the Humanities lecturer went on to explain, “it is a collection of poems that should be understood through interdisciplinary study typical of the Humanities including fields such as literature, philosophy, art, theology and history. In addition to being a book that has had a great impact on all these areas, it is still very current seven centuries later”.

The Divine Comedy’s relevance is based on the fact that, as Corcó explains, and as was reiterated throughout workshop, this work “speaks to us of the human condition. It is possible to draw an anthropological-theological reading according to which Hell is the inner states of lack of love, of acute pain; Purgatory is the inner states of tension towards love, of longing for happiness, of desire for infinite good; and Paradise is the inner states of fullness of love, of joy, of complete happiness. The great tropes of The Divine Comedy are on the one hand love and human freedom, and on the other, love and divine mercy”.

In addition to lecturer Josep Corcó and lecturer Judith Urbano, dean of the Faculty of Humanities, other workshop participants included Jaume Aurell, full professor of Medieval History at the University of Navarra; Rossend Arqués, lecturer in Italian Philology for the Department of French and Romance Philology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and coordinator of the Master's Degree in Theatre Studies, and Eduard Vilella, lecturer in French and Romance Philology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

The Cross-Disciplinary Workshops provide a meeting space for students and lecturers from the Faculty of Humanities, who, alongside experts from other universities, spend a few days studying a specific topic. These topics are always approached from different disciplines and numerous perspectives. In addition, all students who would like to go on a study trip to a European city to learn first-hand about the legacy of Western tradition, can sign up and go with a teacher. This year, the trip is to Pompei and Herculaneum. Students are there this week and will return on Sunday.